Tales From The Campfire
by FlashyDwarf
Summary: Essentially, how I imagine the Warden and the rest of the group interact, not when they're on quests but inbetween them. Some minor slash and a bit of language, essentially written for fun. : Enjoy!


**So, a bit of Dragon Age numero uno for you. I'm not sure if I'll carry this on, just interested to see if I can make it work at all, I like playing with characters. :) AND I've got a few hours to kill before the badly timed cup of uber strong coffee wears off. Enjoy this short and if you like it, review! I might get inspired to write some more sometime.**

* * *

Prologue.

Morrigan laughed. What erupted from between her lips had tinges of the usual snyde laugh but this time with a hint of absolute revelry and humor. Her smile practically cracking her face, she continued to watch the fully grown man writhe and whimper at her feet, curling up into a ball with his hands clasped to the sides of his head. Anyone stumbling upon the scene would have thought it was some unholy, sadistic act of torture. The Warden knew differently. Little did they know it, but Morrigan had stumbled across Ferelden's first ever 'wet willie'.

Alistair groaned and stuck his tongue out in disgust.

"You are the most vile creature I think I've ever encountered," he growled, desperately plunging his fingers into his ears to remove the cold wetness much to his rival's entertainment. She had to kneel now, finding her actions so funny they had almost reduced her to tears. Nobody else was laughing, The Warden noticed. It was ok, Morrigan made her own fun.

Lelliana reached out and offered a clean cloth to Alistair, who grabbed it and rubbed the sides of his face on it irratically. Slowly losing interest, Morrigan decided to pad away lightly, giggling to herself. Sten observed with a face full of bemusement from his nearby seat on a soft patch of Earth. He seemed to open his mouth to question the random interchange but he seemed to think better of it and he turned away, content to just let it slide as another ridiculous human custom.

"I believe you were just penetrated by a lady, my man." The slick voice of Zevran rang out in his usual indiscreet way, causing Oghren to roll off the crate on which he was sat with laughter and rousing a new wave of giggles from Morrigan. Alistair shot him a glare that could kill and decided it best to wave the whole thing off with a 'ha-ha'. He noticed that even the dog had taken to flopping around happily, which rubbed it in even more for the Templar. He threw himself onto the ground, face up, pulled the cloth over his eyes and proceeded to attempt to sleep.

* * *

After a good few minutes, Oghren had righted himself and the camp was orderly again. All except Morrigan who seemed to be perfecting her in-ear technique by jabbing a soggy finger into the ears of Alistair's Grey Warden hand puppet. The Templar had either acheived a restless sleep or was attempting to feign it and Zevren had taken off to bed with The Warden. Thank god they had moved their tent away from the camp, was the mutual agreement of everyone else. That left the camp to talk amongst themselves. Sten noticed something seemed to be troubling the dwarf so half heartedly asked him what it was because it was disturbing his rest.

"You know," came the gruff dwarven voice, directed at nobody but the general gathering around him "those two bump so many uglies its a wonder they don't strain themselves. Shame really that I can't find me a woman like her. P'raps you have to be a smooth talking pansy elf to get that sort of attention." He looked at each member of the party in turn, even at Sten who merely shrugged and huffed, staring at him as though he were an idiot. Perhaps he had a point.

"Oghren, don't tell me your jealous... Surely a fine stud of a man like you would have the Warden on her knees, figuratively speaking, in a matter of minutes?" Morrigan again, purring from the shadows a little away from the centre of the group, her eyes twinkling. A twitch from Alistair's leg, he was evidently listening to everything and very much awake causing Morrigan to smirk, she really knew how to press all his buttons.

The dwarf turned, swaying slightly and growled the most intellectual response he possibly could at Morrigan in a dull slur- "You can sh'rup." He then proceeded to watch the tent in which the two lovers had dissapeared. If he had one shot with anyone, he would want it to be with her, but he couldn't escape that niggling feeling that perhaps she was better off with someone else. How would it look, after all, if the last Warden; a beacon of hope for a nation at war and an international icon of justice was seen dragging his sorry arse around Denerim, having to bend down double to kiss her permenantly half-drunk lover. He couldn't wreck her reputation like that. But an assasin? Surely that took the biscuit even more?

"What would the Warden possibly see in Zevran anyway? I know he has the looks, the charm, the danger, the mystery... But surely she'd rather be cleaning a dwarf's socks for the rest of her life, hmm? Pushed down into the mud by a man dragging at her heels like a ball and chain. Is that what you want for her?" She was growing aggitated now- Morrigan had seemingly had enough of playing nice. Oghren slowly turned his head towards her, trying to hide a look of dissapointment. "After all," she added, turning her back on the group as she began to stalk off towards her shelter, "nobody can turn down a spineless, sexist drunkard in favor of a shot of true happiness, eh?"

With that, she was gone, leaving behind her usual haze of uncomfortable silence. The worst part, he knew, was that she was right.

* * *

The morning came with new challenges for Aleic. The first being peeling herself off the exotic, naked elf laid with his arms around her and the second being improving the morale over breakfast. There she was, completely happy, whilst everyone else sat in awkward quiet, chewing mystery meat and only occasionally breaking the silence to discuss the day's plans. It would be a number of day's journey to reach the final destination on their quest, the Circle Tower, so they decided to proceed immediately with packing the camp onto Bodhan and Sandal's cart and setting off.

It was evident that all of the group aside from Oghren had slept well despite the tension between them, so it was decided that the dwarf and the hound should lead the caravan to its next destination while the others scouted out ahead to find a suitable path to walk and a campsite to occupy in the coming night. Ahead of them lay the long road to the Tower, for some reason it was deemed neccesary to plod along the longest road in Ferelden to get there, but nobody was willing to challenge Aleic's judgement so they went along with it.

The journey to the next camp was brutal, they faced all manner of foul beasts. What Oghren hated the most was the Darkspawn, but the few stragglers that attacked the caravan were easily picked off so defence was easy. The hardest part was the hours of solid trudging; traipsing across the country dragging their feet every step of the way was agonisingly slow, particularly with the small ox-drawn caravan convoy behind them.

The first thing to crack when the straggling convoy finally caught up to the others was the neck of a bottle of cheap wine. The others had already begun setting up the usual things; an individually suited place for each member of the party to sit, a campfire, the donation boxes for the Dalish Elves, Dwarves and Redcliffe militia, and the weak surrounding barricade which acted as an early warning system to keep them safe. Most of the things creeping around a camp at night exclaim 'ow!' when they stub their toes, so the 'ow' fence was built at ankle height to keep out prowlers.

With a little luck, Oghren thought, Aleic would sleep out under the stars with him for a change that night. He could use some company and since he first joined their group and the unfortunate accident attempting to make alcohol out of the camp's entire stock of potatoes, nobody else seemed kind enough to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe he wasn't completely insane. There was only one person with infinate wisdom, kindness, patience and badass attitude who talked with him on a personal level, and she was way out of his league. Oghren regrettably became Ferelden's first established member of the 'friend zone'.


End file.
